Thank you so much for the feedback, the alerts and the favs! I really appreciate them all.
And did I mention there are spoilers for "Provenance," from S1? If not, and if it matters, I'm SO sorry! 'Cause they're here...
Rush
Chapter 3
When he got off the man-skip at the bottom of the main shaft, Sam's hardhat clanked against rock overhead, making him duck instantly, his back curved into a slouch.
He hadn't really noticed before, worried as he'd been about his brother, but the temperature inside the North Cedar Mine was mild, and when he brushed his hand against the ceiling, not even the stone felt particularly cool.
"I thought it would be colder," he said, voice thin in the emptiness.
"Plenty of mines are cold," Steve Hartson replied, leading the way down the passage once again toward the first drift. They went swiftly this time, without a hobbling Dean to slow them down. "This one, the temp stays pretty even in the mid-sixties, no matter how far down you go."
Sam catalogued the fact in his mental almanac. "Why is that?" he asked, and the mine-owner shrugged.
"Luck? It sure didn't have to do with the fresh air that got pumped down here when things were in full swing. Doesn't matter whether it's winter or summer up top, either."
"Dryer than I thought it would be, too," Sam murmured, holding the EMF meter out before him, tilting his head to catch the gauge's face with his headlamp. The needle was stuttering erratically as they reached the drift known as the Thirty-Six.
"Give me a second and I'll get the lights on," Steve said, his voice disappearing into the dark expanse as he moved to fire up the generator. "Can't wait to get the electricity restored in here."
Sam stepped forward into the emptiness, shoulders still hunched, and in a moment both men were blinking in the relative brightness of an array of carbon lamps, a vast room of granite spread out before them.
"Look at it," Steve said uncomfortably over the noise of the generator. "Not a thing down here and it's like daylight, but there's still something about this place.... You know, a lot of the original mining was done by candle or lantern. Can you even imagine spending twelve hours a day down here, sitting on cold, hard rock, tapping away with only a candle to see by?"
An odd scent tickled Sam's nose like a memory, evoking sun-dried fields of grass and prairie stretching for miles as the Impala roared along Midwestern roads, John or sometimes Dean at the wheel, Sam watching the land flash past, watching his childhood fly by. He blinked again, frowning slightly, and the scent was gone.
"Except for the Forty-Eight, the lower tunnels are flooded with groundwater again, up to its natural level," Steve continued. "I can't afford to pump it out, so the Thirty-Six is pretty much the limit."
The hunter felt his brow wrinkle at that, but he took a breath and kept walking, running his fingers absently along the ceiling to avoid bumping his head, not really sure what he was looking for. Beyond the generator and the carbon lamps, the drift was completely empty, not even a pile of rock littering the floor.
"So, this is called the Thirty-Six because we've traveled thirty-six hundred feet from the mine entrance to get here, right?" Sam asked. "It's not because we're thirty-six hundred feet straight down."
"You got it." Steve still lingered near the entrance, decidedly uneasy. "The Forty-Eight isn't really that much lower, and it's dry, too, but that's really where… I'm not going to…I just can't have—" The sentence trailed off forlornly.
"What?" Suddenly impatient, Sam turned and gave the mine-owner a hard look. "Steve, tell me the truth about why you wanted us to come here. Why is the Thirty-Six the limit? What's happening at the North Cedar?"
Steve shook his head, seeming more ashamed, now, than frightened. "I'm a mining engineer," he said, turning his palms up and studying them closely in the bright carbon light, unable to meet Sam's eyes. "I've been in deeper holes than this for half my life, practically—coal mines, gold mines, copper, tin, you name it. I've worked cave-ins where miners died, Sam, because we couldn't get them out in time, and where the rescue crew were also in danger of losing their own lives. But there's no place I've ever been that makes me as jumpy as my own damn mine, and I can't figure it out for the life of me. There's just something about the North Cedar that feels wrong."
"But nothing's happened here, at this level? Nobody's experienced any—" Sam sneezed suddenly, and the needle on the EMF meter jumped. At the same moment the generator stumbled, lights flickering.
Sam spun around, eyes taking in the drift's breadth and depth, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary as the generator hiccupped again and the lights dimmed appreciably.
Steve's voice rose nervously. "Sam?"
"It's okay," the younger man replied. "Maybe the mix in the generator is off. Has this ever happened bef—"
The silence was almost deafening in its suddenness as the generator died, the room plunged into darkness. The absence of noise pounded against their ears before the EMF meter sirened into life, giving one brief wail before dying away.
And the odd, grassy scent returned, this time with the aroma of dust and sweat and something else Sam couldn't quite place. He flicked the switch on his headlamp, but its feeble glow barely penetrated the darkness as he turned back toward the entrance.
"Steve, I'm sure it's just a—Whoa!"
Sam's breath caught in his throat when the beam of the hardhat lantern caught the mule almost head-on as it ambled by. The ghostly animal passed him within inches, single-minded, long ears twitching disinterestedly, shod feet clopping against the granite floor and harness jangling faintly. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, along with the odor Sam now recognized as hay and old manure.
With the mule's passing, the generator coughed and roared back to life, carbon lamps once again blazing, and Sam caught himself with his mouth hanging open. He shut it with a snap, reaching quickly into his jacket for the sawed-off.
"You saw that, right?" he asked.
When Steve didn't answer immediately, Sam shot a quick look at the entrance, and saw the mine-owner standing against the rock wall as though frozen, eyes wide and staring.
"Steve? You okay?"
Steve blinked, then shook himself. "What—?" He stopped to swallow, blinking again in disbelief. "What the hell was that? My God, Sam—was that for real?"
Sam glanced down again at the silent EMF meter in his left hand, then frowned and switched it off, stashing it in a jacket pocket.
"Depends on what you mean by 'real,'" he replied. "That was residual energy, I think. Kind of like an imprint in the room—you might see it again and again, but it can't harm anything."
Steve had begun a slow slide down the wall until he was sitting on his haunches, holding his head in his hands. "I don't believe it," he murmured, barely audible over the renewed noise of the generator.
More alert than ever, Sam moved out again, visually scanning every inch of the Thirty-Six.
"What I don't get is what it was," he said distractedly. "A mule? Why would the ghost of a mule be down here?"
The mine owner's voice was flat in response. "They pulled the ore-skips down here for years. There used to be a stable for them at the far end of the drift; once the mules were brought down into the mine, some of 'em never saw the light of day again."
"Huh."
It took several minutes, but there was nothing more to see, and Sam let his long legs take him quickly back to Steve, still sitting between the generator and the drift entrance.
"Well, I guess we can safely say that the Thirty-Six definitely has a spirit," the hunter reported. "I thought you said nobody'd experienced anything here."
Steve coughed into his fist, looking away, and Sam felt his lips tighten.
"Steve."
"It's just that I've never experienced anything here. The workers, back to the turn of the century, there've always been stories. I just figured they're stories, is all…brought over from Cornwall or wherever, you know?"
"Fine. That's great. Who or what are the stories about?"
"Noises, mostly—hard-drinking, uneducated men hearing noises. Bangs and moans and voices, stuff like that. Tapping, like in Cornish folklore."
Sam nodded. "Tommyknockers. You haven't heard them?"
"It's a mine, Sam. Sounds can echo and change down here—that I have heard."
Sam had the feeling there was still more that Steve wasn't telling him, so he kept silent, letting his height loom over the shorter man until Steve stood, shuffling his feet uneasily.
"And there've been stories about guys seeing things," the mine-owner finally admitted. "No mules, but shadows and weird lights. Mists. Especially right after someone died in one of the shafts, you know how that kind of thing goes. But the stories always came from down in the lower drifts and winzes, nothing this close to the top. That's why I figured I didn't have to really worry about it, because those are all underwater now."
"What about the Forty-Eight?" Sam asked. "Tell me exactly what the stories have been there."
"Honestly, there's nothing exact to tell. Just what I said before—shadows, cold places, funny noises."
"So, not tommyknockers, then."
Steve shrugged, keeping his eyes on the drift's rough granite floor. "Any mine, you're going to hear about knockers. But at the North Cedar, most of the stories have been about people just being basically creeped out, particularly at the Forty-Eight. Like they're being watched by something that doesn't want them there. Heck, I'm creeped out right here! It's why I don't go there any more."
Sam nodded, lips still pursed as he checked the loads in the salt-gun for the second time.
"Well, you're going down there today."
-:- -:- -:-
Dean idly tossed the amber prescription bottle in his left hand, frowning slightly at the rattle of the capsules inside, knowing they were for his own good but not wild about the thought of taking them.
He'd never admit it to Sammy, of course, but the walking and stair-climbing he'd done that morning had exhausted him, and his knee felt like shit, swollen and throbbing. He needed to get off his feet, needed some rest.
Thing was, Sam was still with Steve up at the North Cedar, and although he'd tried several times, Dean hadn't been able to reach his brother by phone.
Guess cell signals can't penetrate granite, he thought. Damn, he was tired; aching everywhere. Fucking knee.
Oh, he wasn't worried, not really. Sam was a big boy who could take care of himself, and it didn't seem like there was anything really going on at the mine, anyway. Dean just didn't like his little brother being out of touch, not while they were hunting, and not while they didn't know exactly what they were hunting. Especially not while Dean wasn't at the top of his game.
Because Sammy wasn't, either, to tell the truth, particularly not after their run-in with Meg. No, Sammy was starting to get wound up again, taut and tense like he hadn't been in a while.
Last time—and, oh God, last time hadn't been anywhere near as bad as this time—last time, Dean had stood it as long as he could, then pushed his brother about getting some release. They'd been in upstate New York…what was that girl's name? Oh, yeah. Sarah. That thing with the painting.
For a split second he puzzled over the fact that he could remember the names of Sam's women, but so few of his own.
Then, despite the throbbing in his knee, Dean couldn't suppress a grin. Sammy and his hormones. Time to see about getting that boy laid, good and proper.
Well, bad and improper, more like.
Dean's smile slowly faded as he opened the bottle and shook two capsules into his palm, dry-swallowing them quickly. The brothers' recent encounter with the spirit of Molly McNamara had sent Sam into something of a tailspin, little brother typically over-thinking things, trying to gain greater understanding of what they did.
Truth be told, Dean personally didn't care whether or not he understood it, so long as they got the job done. John Winchester hadn't raised his boys to question the family business, only to be successful at it. Salt-and-burn was efficient and effective, and that made it good enough for Dean.
Sammy, though—Sammy had always been all about the questions, and now it seemed like he was dead set on finding the good in every bad thing they hunted. Vampires, demon-virus carriers, lovelorn ghosts…Jesus, what would be next? It was dangerous, over-thinking things. Slowed you down, left you vulnerable. Good soldiers, well-trained, acted appropriately by rote, Dad had always said….
But Dad was gone, and he'd left everything in Dean's hands. Like always. And Sam was still puzzling things out, like always, leaving Dean alone with the world on his shoulders.
Like always.
Dean lay down on his back atop the quilted coverlet of his bed, boots still on, not bothering to unstrap the brace on his leg, fidgeting until he was more or less comfortable. Not that he'd be uncomfortable for long, not with the dosage of Ox he'd taken. Him and opiates? Not the best combination, by a long shot. Vicodin had started screwing with him royally, and Demerol wasn't much better. Discounting morphine, that pretty much left oxycodone for whatever codeine or ibuprofen couldn't handle, and man, even codeine knocked him right out, flat on his ass. This stuff? Forget it—Dean could already feel his muscles relaxing. Huh. Maybe he should get Sam to take some….
"She was dead all those years, and she still loved her husband," Sam had said out of the blue one night shortly after Molly's spirit had walked off to wherever she had gone.
The comment had taken Dean by surprise until he saw Sam's face, and then he knew his little brother was thinking about Jessica again.
"Of course she did," Dean had chided him kindly. "If it's real, love's not gonna go away just because somebody dies."
Sam had gone silent, the motel room oddly quiet but for the agitated rhythm of his thumb tapping pensively against the table where he sat.
Dean had tried again. "He still loved her, too, you know."
"Yeah, I know."
"But it didn't stop him from getting on with his life." Dean had paused, not certain how far to take things. It was so hard to see Sam still hurting….
"Hey, Sam? You remember what you said to Molly, up in that cabin, talking about why ghosts stick around?"
Sam had raised bereft eyes to his brother, not sure of Dean's reference, and Dean had quirked a thoughtful smile.
"You kept hoping she was gonna figure out the truth on her own, kept dropping hints, but she just wouldn't see. You told her that some spirits hold on too tight and can't let go."
Sam had frowned instantly, dropping his gaze and turning away, sure signs he knew just where Dean was headed and didn't want to follow.
But he would, if Dean led him cautiously enough, gently enough. Slowly but surely, Sam would see the light.
"Comes a time when you just have to move on, you know?" Dean had said softly. "Goes for ghosts, and for people, too."
"Yeah."
There'd been a lot of doubt in that single word, but that Sam had said it at all was miles ahead of where he'd ever been before, since Jessica's death.
Dean had drawn in a deep breath, choosing his words carefully, voicing them even more carefully. "Sam. With all due respect. Think maybe it's time for you to really start moving on?"
The pause had seemed eternal, and Dean had finally given up hope that his brother was going to answer when the whisper came.
"Yeah. Maybe."
The oxycodone did what it always did, sending him drifting into deep sleep.
-:- -:- -:-
Sam was giggling, loud enough that Dean roused, stirring atop the covers; infectious enough that an answering smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The giggle came again—fuller now, with some belly in it. It was the giddy chortle Sammy always used when Dad was tickling him, or playing some silly game that delighted the youngster no end. It generally finished with the little boy shrieking with laughter, begging gleefully for his big brother to come and join them, and sure enough, Dean heard the quick smack of light feet approaching across the hardwood floor. He felt the bed jolt as the little body thudded into it, and that was enough to set off the pain in his knee, jarring Dean awake with a hiss, reminding him where he was. Reminding him that Sam hadn't been four in a very long time. Reminding him that Dad was dead, the days of playing silly games well behind them all.
Goosebumps rose along his bare arms.
Eyes sweeping the room quickly, Dean struggled to sit up, wincing with the motion although he hadn't even loosened the brace and his knee was still stretched straight. He was alone and the suite was quiet, undisturbed even by noise from the street, the air heavy and still. His head ached dully, residue of too long a nap in too warm a room with too many painkillers numbing his senses. He felt sluggish, deadened, and he closed his eyes, began easing back down onto the pillows for more sleep when a whisper of ice caressed his cheek. Not quite there but not quite silent, he heard the giggle again. Not little Sammy's laugh, after all—no, this sounded like a young girl, very close by.
Dean's eyes flew open once more, his hand falling onto the shotgun that lay beside him. He sat up much faster this time, jacking a round into the chamber, searching every corner of the room. Held his breath for ten seconds, listening, but there was nothing—no footsteps, no laughter, salt undisturbed—and he reached cautiously to the night-stand to flick on the EMF meter.
Which was with Sam at the North Cedar Mine.
Can't hunt on drugs, Winchester. Dean gave himself a mental kick, confidence growing now that what he'd heard and felt weren't real, but induced by narcotics. Again. That really was it for the oxycodone; he'd take pain over hallucinations any day.
He rose awkwardly from the bed, still logy from the meds, and staggered into the bathroom. At the sink, cool water running, he cupped his hands and slurped noisily, washing his mouth and spitting into the sink before gathering another handful to drink and yet another to splash over his face. It felt good, and Dean turned the water on full force, ducking low to douse his head as much as possible, letting it help wake him.
Then he thought he heard a rap on the outer door, followed by a series of quick thumps, light footsteps skipping along the hallway toward the lobby and the staircase.
What the--?
He turned off the tap with a quick twist, listening intently. Nothing. Water dripped from his eyelashes and streamed from his hair down his face and neck, soaking the collar of his t-shirt, and he snagged the hand towel and took a hurried swipe, every sense on alert.
There was another thump. Definitely someone upstairs, now.
"Sonofabitch."
He limped back to the bed and grabbed up the shotgun, eyes on the ceiling, tracking the footsteps through the beams and plaster. Back and forth along the hallway, from the sound, like someone running lightly. Or skipping.
And another sound, very faint. Someone—a female voice—singing. He thought he caught words, too, drifting down from the second floor:
Come be my forever love
My lovely little turtle dove...
This couldn't be the drugs.
Dean crossed the room swiftly and headed out, down the hall and past the reception desk to the foot of the stairs, rubbing the side of his head against an upraised shoulder to catch errant drops of water still trickling down from his hair. He halted at the landing, eying the staircase grimly, then set his jaw and began the slow ascent. One step at a time, starting with his left foot, planting it firmly, then angling his right foot up, knee kept stiff by the brace. It was graceless work. And slow. And noisier than he cared for, but he had no other options. Damned if he was going to use the friggin' service elevator.
He let his eyes flick back and forth, up and down, from the next step, to the top of the staircase, along the upper landing to what he could see of the hallway, then back to the next step. When the sound of running slowed and the singing died away to a whisper, his own breathing was harsh in his ears, and he froze, poised between risers, gaze pinned to the hallway.
There was a hesitant footfall, just past the corner, out of sight. Dean braced himself against the wall, raising the shotgun to his shoulder, prepared for whatever might come into view.
Nothing did. There was a slight sigh, like a sudden, surprised release of breath, and then the hurried pat-pat-pat of retreating feet.
Jaw clenched, Dean hoisted himself up the next steps as quickly as he could, but he'd only reached the top landing when he heard the sharp slam of a door at the far end of the hall.
He hop-hobbled to the corridor entrance and plastered his back to the wall, then risked a quick, pivoting look around the corner. The hallway was empty—silent and shadowed.
He paused briefly until his breathing was even before moving into the hall, stopping at each door to test the knob. Locked, every one, until only the last remained: the door to Delilah Reardon's room, where the prosperous madam and grieving mother had fatally stabbed JT Markham.
Steeling himself, Dean twisted the knob quickly—it turned easily in his hand and the door sprang open as if in invitation. With a snarl he crossed the threshold, shotgun held ready, gaze flying to all corners, but the room was empty.
He realized he'd been holding his breath, which he released and replaced with a slow lungful of air, feeling the hairs rise on his arms, on the back of his neck. As though he were anticipating something. As though something were anticipating him. He stood for a long moment, eyes on the table where a knife and fork lay crosswise on one of the china plates.
"Looks like supper's over," he murmured.
Then the feeling of waiting leached away, soaking into the walls and floor and ceiling until the room was empty of everything but furniture and Dean. Whatever else had been in Delilah Reardon's room, it was gone now. That, he knew for a certainty.
Knee aching again fiercely, Dean took the service elevator back down to the first floor.
-:- -:- -:-
Steve hadn't run a power cable down to the Forty-Eight, so they used their headlamps again, Sam already tired of walking through the long tunnel with his shoulders hunched, his neck bent because of the low stone ceiling. He'd given Steve the big flashlight to use and kept the other for himself. The salt-gun was racked and ready.
The drift forty-eight hundred feet from the surface was just like the one at thirty-six hundred feet, big and dark and empty.
"Nothing to see down here," Steve whispered, his voice echoing oddly against the granite as they stepped out into the open space. "Nobody's been here in I don't know how lo—"
Their headlamps and flashlights died together, and the temperature in the giant room plummeted. Sam brought the salt-gun up, eyes searching the darkness, ears straining to hear anything other than the high-pitched moan that had started in Steve's throat.
"Stay calm, Steve," he ordered. "There's something here."
It was the wrong thing to say, because the moan gained strength.
"Nonononono," Steve pleaded. "I don't want to see anything else!"
"Quiet!" There was a tapping noise to his right and Sam jerked his head that way, but the noise faded instantly, starting up again to his left before dying away completely.
Steve plucked frantically at his sleeve. "Where's the tunnel?! It's too dark; I can't see! Please—let's get out of here!"
A long, low breath sounded in Sam's other ear, then, and he flinched, striking out with the stock of the shotgun but hitting nothing.
Nothing there to hit.
The sudden movement caused Steve to shout and jump away.
"What was it? What was it?" he cried.
"Don't panic!" Sam said tersely. "If you panic, you'll run into something, get hurt!"
"Haaaaaaaaa—"
The breath had voice this time, raspy and unoiled, and Steve shrieked, turning to run and apparently tripping over his own feet, sprawling to the ground in an ungainly heap. He shot up immediately, but Sam grabbed a fistful of shirt at what felt like the mine-owner's shoulder and held him firmly in place.
"Steve! Listen to me! Do not run!"
"Haaaaaartsonnnnn," the voice said, still mostly air but the name unmistakable. "Miiiiine."
Sam was suddenly aware that there was a vague light in the room. He could see the pale oval of Steve's face now, mouth working soundlessly, eyes wide with terror as the older man stared at something over Sam's shoulder.
Sam whirled to see the eldritch blue light coalescing into a shape roughly human, something long and thin beside it.
"Now, Steve! Go!" Sam commanded, bringing up the shotgun quickly and firing into the figure point-blank. The blast was nearly deafening, echoing along the drift, and the eerie light flared and died in the same instant.
After a long moment, Sam's headlamp began to glow dimly.
"Go!" he ordered again, turning and pushing Steve in the direction of the passageway, now faintly visible as a void in the darkness of the stone wall some twenty feet away. The mine-owner needed no further urging—he sprang toward the tunnel just as Sam's lamp faded again.
"Haaaaartson!"
The blue light was back, this time appearing between the two men, so that Sam could not shoot for fear of hitting Steve. As it coalesced, Sam could see that it was the spirit of a large man dressed in dusty trousers, suspenders pulled up over sweat-soaked flannel, ragged handkerchief around his neck and a long-handled shovel in his hand.
"Hey!" Sam shouted, angling for a shot.
The spirit turned, raising the shovel over its head and coming at Sam furiously, directly into the blast of the salt-gun.
Steve was at the tunnel mouth now, and Sam hurried to him in the on-again, off-again light from his headlamp. Steve's also glowed intermittently, although each of them had dropped their flashlights back in the drift somewhere when the ghost had first appeared.
"Come on," Sam ordered urgently. "We should go now."
And Steve shrieked again, Sam whirling to find the spirit fully materialized right behind him, shovel raised threateningly. It came down hard, Sam twisting awkwardly away at the last moment, throwing one hand up, and the shovel smacked brutally against his forearm rather than his head.
He cried out at the savage blow, dropping the salt-gun, his hand and arm numbed instantly all the way to the shoulder. Then the shovel came at him again with deadly intent, aimed at his head once more.
It struck him squarely, the hardhat taking the brunt of the damage, rigid plastic splitting as the flat of the blade hit. The suspension inside the hat couldn't provide much of a safety cushion, not against that force, and Sam barely had time to recognize the explosion of pain before he blacked out.
His unconsciousness was brief, and he reawakened suddenly, on his back on the rough stone floor, being dragged swiftly by his feet down into the drift, away from Steve.
"Run, Steve!" Sam yelled.
His shirt rode high on his chest as he was pulled along, the granite beneath him scraping exposed skin on his back and shoulders. He twisted to the right, kicking out at whatever had him—had to be the ghost, right? Yeah, it was him—and now the rock shredded his side and the sleeves of his shirts, scoring jagged weals in his arm which he could not feel. The safety-helmet had tumbled away when he went down, and his head bounced painfully against the granite. That, he could feel.
The giant hands around his ankles released him suddenly, left him blinking dazedly in the blackness of the drift as the ghost moved back out into the passageway.
"Haaaartson! Mmmmmiiiine!" it roared angrily.
Again Sam could hear the words distinctly over Steve's terrified shrieks, and he scrambled to his feet, running back to the tunnel.
He couldn't really see Steve through the image of the spirit, which was now pretty solid, still glowing an unnatural blue. In that light Sam spied the salt-gun lying where he had dropped it, and he scooped it up quickly, racking in another load.
"Steve! Get down!" he thundered, then made sure Steve was on the ground before letting go with both barrels. The spirit wailed and vanished.
Sam grabbed another fistful of Steve's jacket and hauled him upright, then hustled him up the tunnel toward the Thirty-Six. His ears were ringing from the explosive sounds of the salt-gun and from the knocking his head had taken from the shovel and the granite floor; blood teased hotly from his temple down the side of his face. His arm was throbbing now, and the scrapes on his back and side stung, but he pushed Steve hard until at last they came to the lit chamber of the Thirty-Six.
Steve was gasping and crying as they hurried through the drift and along the upper passage, killing the generator on the way and loading themselves frantically into the man-skip. Sam hit the switch, engaging the hoist to take them back to the surface.
"It's all right," he told the mine-owner several times, or thought he did, anyway. His hearing still wasn't right, and he was so dizzy that twice Sam nearly pitched over the side of the man-skip as it clattered slowly along the rails up into the daylight.
But in another six minutes, they were out of the mine.
-:- -:- -:-
When he still couldn't get through to his brother's cell, Dean decided to take matters into his own hands. Just because the general was incommunicado didn't mean the troops couldn't show some initiative--time for recon. He went out to cruise the streets of Rattlesnake.
Well. Hobble along the boarded sidewalks, more like, since Sam had the Impala with him up at the North Cedar.
He had to keep an eye on where he walked; some of the boards were warped with age and weather, ready to trip up the unobservant. Falling flat on his face on a public sidewalk was just about the last thing Dean needed right now. Not without being drunk, anyway.
He thought briefly about ducking into the bar across from the café on Eureka Street, but blew it off as a bad idea. The oxycodone had stopped working on the throb in his knee, but it was still doing a pretty good number on his head. Fucking opiates.
He'd never had hallucinations with the painkiller before, not like he'd had with whatever it was Jo had given him back in Duluth. Still, there was a first time for everything, Dean guessed, as he watched the slim figure of an Asian woman in brightly colored silk robes and a coolie hat float along the sidewalk a block and a half east on Eureka. She disappeared neatly into one of the town's old buildings, and he huffed a sigh.
Could be a ghost, he supposed, although it was still broad daylight and most Caspers preferred the dark. Pretty, whatever she was.
There was a park at the end of Yankee Street, two blocks south, past an array of brick and wood storefronts of varying heights and purposes. Some had awnings colorful-or-not, others were bare-faced to the elements. Whiskey-barrel tubs along the way overflowed with those little purple and yellow flowers in front of the antique dealer's, a print shop, a sandwich joint and the local welfare office—pretty much the usual in a burg like this, Dean thought. Select town name, insert here; he'd seen it all before.
He limped his way to the park, just because he could, determined that his knee and the brace would not get the best of him. But he spent a long moment standing in the shade of the big oak, resting, back against the trunk and his eyes closed, gathering his strength.
Ah, God, he sure as hell had never figured on his life turning out like this. Not that he spent much time thinking about it, that was for damn sure. What was the point, when the chaos and violence of their lives was predictable only in its unpredictability and in its ubiquity. Shit came out of nowhere, but it always came.
This thing with the demon that had killed their mom? No way Dean had ever seen that one on the horizon, no matter he'd spent his entire life chasing after ol' Yellow-Eyes with their dad. Sammy and his visions, Sammy and whatever superpowers he had, whatever connection to the dark side; Dad's last words, his death. Christ, each one had struck so hard out of left field that Dean sometimes felt he was still reeling from the blows. None of it made any sense. Save Sam or kill him? Who the fuck could possibly expect Dean to kill Sam? All he'd ever done was watch out for the guy, and now…
Stop thinking, Dean.
He ground the heel of his hand into his eye-socket, relishing the distraction of the sparks he created in his eye or in his brain or wherever the hell they happened. Something he could control, anyway—don't want sparks in your brain? Then don't rub your damn eye.
"Dean, I can see fireworks!"
He'd been ten when he'd looked up from his car magazine to see his little brother pressing his fingers hard against his eyelids, face scrunched with delighted concentration.
"Don't do that," Dean had ordered casually, returning to his reading, but of course Sam had gone right ahead.
"There's all kinds of colors, Dean, and they're sparking everywhere. What are they? Why do they do that?"
Dean had been short on answers and shorter on patience, as so often happened when he was worried about Dad, out doing God knows what, so he'd snapped angrily.
"Stop it, Sammy! You're right—they're sparks. And if one of them gets into your brain, it's going to blow up! You want that to happen?"
Sam had dropped his hands immediately, his jaw dropping, too; his curiosity overwhelmed by sudden fright. He'd burst into tears, of course, as Dean should have known he would, and it had taken a dish of ice cream and an extra half-hour of cartoons before the incident was forgotten.
Dean snorted at the memory of his brother as an inquisitive six-year-old and himself so much a man of the world, even before he'd reached double digits. Man of the world, pawn of the world…
Fuck, Dean! Stop thinking!
He shoved off from the tree and headed back down Yankee toward Eureka Street, badly wanting a drink, badly wanting his knee to be whole, badly wanting that Sam not be—yeah. Badly wanting.
He was still more than a block away from The Baron when the Impala turned the corner off of Cedar and stopped in front of the hotel. He could tell there were two people in the front seat, but what drew Dean's attention most was the fact that his baby's black coat was seriously dulled with a thick dusting of bright yellow pine pollen. He groaned inwardly. Strike one for Sammy.
Then he snorted, deriding himself. Like springtime was Sam's fault.
But when the driver's door opened and Steve Hartson stepped out through it, Dean frowned and picked up his pace; started counting again. Strike two.
Then Sam eased open the passenger door, hoisting himself painfully up, his giant, grasping hands leaving prints in the pollen on the roof and along the door frame. The kid was clearly not firing on all cylinders.
Strike thr—aw, hell. Game friggin' over.
Despite the brace, Dean began to run.
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